ReAnimator2: The Return of the ReAnimator
by Arthur Delapore
Summary: Dr. Herbert West and Dr. James Harkness return from their exile in Africa back to Arkham. The experiments continue as West and Harkness continue to develop the reagent and prevent Dr. Hill from using it for his own unsavory ends. CHAPTER FOUR IS UP
1. Africa

Re-Animator 2: Return of the Re-Animator

Episode One: Africa

"This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends," I repeated over and over again. "Not with a bang but a whimper." You might think I'm a crazy, but I was actually reading T.S. Eliot. But then again, maybe that's the same thing.

"Look, bud, we've got to leave this place," one of the soldiers muttered to me.

"What are you talking about?" I returned.

I shook my head. Five years…five years since I'd graduated from Miskatonic University. And during all those five years…what? A weird theory, a meeting with a nerd, and my life suddenly turns into _this. _Here I was in Africa as a medic, and all because we had had to flee Arkham before the authorities got on our tale.

And all because of Herbert West. Dr. West, now. Him and his crazy ideas. Sure, he was a genius. Sure, he had discovered a wonderful new serum—a _re-agent_—that could turn a corpse into a screaming animal. And sure—he had ruined my life pretty much. But I couldn't be selfish. After all, he'd pretty much ruined his own life, too. At least I wasn't alone in my misery.

"James, I think we're leaving now," I heard Herbert's crisp, precise voice behind me. I turned to see him wiping the sweat off his glasses, still watching me coldly.

"Leaving?" I repeated.

"Yes, we have to leave now," Herbert replied. Before he could finish speaking, one of the guards, an African man wearing a green uniform came up to us.

"You both must leave now," he said, his voice emotionless but with authority.

I glanced at Herbert. He shrugged. "I told him we're leaving," he said to the man.

"Just let us get our stuff," I added.

"Leave immediately," the man said, throwing our few belongings straight at us. "Before you bring that green poison around any more dead men."

"This is the way it always ends," I muttered to Herbert as we left the camp. I realized that our prospects were dim. We were alone on the Savannah. There aren't very many prospects that are much dimmer than that.

"Don't worry," Herbert said calmly. "There's an airport five miles from here. We're going there."

"And where are we going to go?" I returned.

"Arkham, of course," Herbert replied. "Where else?"


	2. Back to Arkham

Episode Two: Back to Arkham 

Where else indeed? Trouble always seems to begin—and end—in Arkham. There's something about the town that makes it a sort of magnet for eldritch disasters. I could name quite a few weird tales I'd heard from Arkham…stories about Edward Derby and his wife Asenath…and a _Thing on the Doorstep_…also, Walter Gilman and his _Dreams in the Witch-House_. Yes, Arkham is a bad place.

But there's also something a little contagious about Arkham. It's hard sometimes not to like those old gambrel roofs, the antique bookshops, and not to mention the good old Miskatonic University. I'd gone to the Miskatonic when I was a college student with Herbert West (you can read about all _that _in my first book, aptly titled _The Beginning of the End_). It was at the Miskatonic University that all the trouble started.

Now, the Miskatonic University is not a world-famous place by any means, but the Orne Library over there is quite a place. You should check their special collections department out if you ever get a chance. There's the _Necronomicon_, the _Liber Ivonis_…and if you're looking for lighter reading, there's always Ludvig Prinn's _De Vermis Mysteriis. _I can't say that I've ever flipped through any of these legendary tomes myself, but I've heard of guys who have, and the stories they have to tell aren't too pretty.

So it was that Herbert West and I returned to Arkham, in the hopes that we could continue our researches, perhaps, without being badgered by a bunch of nosy officials.

Now, I'm not too wild about West's theories, but at the same time, I think I'll admit that the guy's a genius. If only he could just somehow perfect his theory enough so that the corpses we experimented on weren't transformed into mindless, foaming-at-the-mouth ghouls, then we would be all right. But that's what we're working on.

"Where in Arkham do you think we should stay this time?" I asked Herbert as we strolled down the streets under the aforementioned gambrel roofs, savouring our return from our self-enforced exile.

"Certainly not the Miskatonic University," West replied. "I don't know if Hill is still working there, but we can't take any chances. It's best, in fact, if neither he nor the rest of the faculty at Miskatonic know that we're here."

"All right," I agreed. "Why don't we stay at that old tenement near Meadow Hill?"

West nodded thoughtfully. "Very well. You handle all that, James. In the meantime, I'll shop around and get some supplies."

"Supplies?" I repeated.

"Of course," Herbert West said coldly. "For the experiment we are going to conduct tonight."


	3. Two Newcomers

Episode Three: Two Newcomers 

So I found myself that afternoon in Arkham renting a ramshackle room in an old tenement near Meadow Hill, crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best in regard to the upcoming experiment.

The question that ran through my mind was…where would West get a hold of a new body for his experimentations, _this _time? Last time we'd been in Arkham, it'd been a little easier. Corpses seemed to fall into our hands right and left, what with our access to the morgue and all that. But this time, what was he going to do? Turn the old wheel back in time and start borrowing Victor Frankenstein's outdated grave rifling shenanigans?

That's the sort of thing I was thinking as I sat in the Burning Man Pub down on Crane St., slugging a bottle of liquor. I was glad to be back home.

At that moment, I noticed a rather good-looking woman and a crafty-eyed young man come into the bar. They attracted my attention pretty quickly—not by being rowdy or anything, but just from the sheer difference between them and the rest of the drunks in the pub. I stared straight ahead, since I didn't want to be obvious and stare at _her_, but just at that moment, the good-looking girl sat right next to me and the shifty-eyed man sat on the other side. They didn't look at me; they looked at the bartender, and ordered a drink. Then they sat there for a while and I sat there, and none of us said much of anything, though I did a great deal of wondering.

Finally, the handsome girl said, "My name's Anna. Who are you?"

I was a little takenaback. This sort of thing usually happens in B-grade romantic comedies, not in _Arkham. _But I smiled back politely and replied, "James."

"Interesting." This time, the young fellow was talking. He turned his crafty gaze on me and his lips held an indefinable smirk. "No last name, I take it?"

"No last name that I'm willing to give to strangers," I said laconically, taking another drink from my bottle and thinking about the upcoming experiment.

"Thinking about the upcoming experiment, eh?" the crafty fellow said with a knowing nod.

I blinked at him. "Experiment?" I repeated, wondering if he'd really said what I just heard him say, or whether it was part of some drunken hallucination.

"That's right," the young fellow repeated. "But I won't trouble you about all that at this moment. You're not yourself right now, are you?"

I was beginning to get a little sick of his crafty smile. "And who might you be?" I said, though I might not have been quite so clear in my speech, since my drink was starting to take its effect on my pronunciation.

"An artist with morbid inclinations," the calculating young man replied.

"We'll come back and talk to you later," Anna assured me. Her lovely dark eyes flashed from my face to the young self-proclaimed artist, and her smile held a faint approval. He looked back at her with a faintly cold, wary glance, and I wondered—not for the first time—what those two were up to.

They both rose and headed out of the Burning Man Pub, and I was left confused and drunk.


	4. An Interrupted Procedure

Episode Four: An Interrupted Procedure 

"James…James! Wake up!" I heard Herbert's crisp, insistent voice piercing through my mind as I blinked and tried to sit up before nausea forced me back down.

"Where am I?" I said. It was an effort even to talk; I felt like I was going to retch.

"You're in the tenement you so helpfully rented for me," Herbert said coldly. "What happened to you? A police officer found you unconscious in the pub! Were you drinking or something?"

"Yeah, but…not _that _much!" I exclaimed, forcing myself to sit up. "Certainly not enough to pass out!"  
"Well, that's what you did," Herbert retorted.

"Wait—that girl!" I muttered. "I bet she and her pal drugged my drink!"

"What are you talking about?" Herbert inquired derisively.

I glared at him. "Look—when I was at the Burning Man Pub, there were these two people who came to me—a guy and a girl. They started talking to me…and they mentioned your experiments. What do you think—"

Herbert stood up. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were grim.

"Spies," he concluded. "But spies for whom? Hill?"

I snorted. "Dr. Hill doesn't have the _brains _to think of using spies."

"Are you kidding?" Herbert shook his head. "The one thing Hill is good at is using other people's brain-power for his own ends." He paced back and forth restlessly. "But how did he find out that I was back in Arkham so quickly? We've been here less than a day!"

"Well, don't look at me," I put in. "I might have been drunk—well, I _was _drunk—but I didn't say a thing about your experiments!"

"Did you happen to catch these—persons' names?" Herbert asked.

"The girl's name was Anna," I replied quickly. "I don't know the guy's name."

"Well, fortunately, they don't know where we live," Herbert mused. "So we can safely proceed with an experiment tonight. But try to be more careful, James; if Hill knows we're here, it could get dirty like last time."

"And we're just about running out of places to exile ourselves to," I added.

West glanced at me sourly. "Get up," he said tersely. "We have an experiment to perform."

I got up—a little groggily—and looked around. "You've already got a subject for us to work on?"

"Yes. He's waiting in the trunk of my car," Herbert said. "Give me a minute and I'll bring him up. In the meantime, get the operating table ready."

"All right," I said doubtfully, as he left the room.

Herbert West walked purposefully away from the tenement towards the parking lot, fingering his car keys. He unlocked the trunk of his black sedan; inside, a sheeted figure lay, cold and still. With professional indifference, Herbert lifted the corpse from his trunk, accidentally dropping his car keys in the process. A hand reached down and picked them up, holding them out towards the scientist.

"Here are your keys," Herbert saw a young woman in her early twenties with flaming red hair and sparkling green eyes smiling brightly at him. He pursed his lips and studied her coldly.

"Well, thank you," he said curtly, taking the keys from her.

"I'm Vivian. Um…are you a medical student?" she asked, eyeing the corpse that he was holding.

"No, I'm a grave robber," he retorted, which was actually the truth, but his tone was filled with such black sarcasm that she simply laughed.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"I suppose you think it is a common practice for people to give out their names to complete strangers in the middle of the night?" Herbert inquired crisply.

"Well, I gave you _my _name," she pointed out.

Herbert stared at her frigidly. "My name is Herbert," he said shortly, heading past her towards the tenement with the corpse.

"Do you want to have lunch with me sometime tomorrow?" Vivian called.

Herbert sighed in exasperation. "I'm busy, as you have hopefully noticed by this time."

"Well, then _you _can pick the place and time," Vivian said brightly.

Herbert looked as if he was about to expire. "The Burning Man Pub at 2:00, if you insist," he said frostily. "What is it you want to discuss?"

"Oh, nothing," Vivian replied. "I just think you're cute."

Herbert stared. "Forget it," he said, quickening his pace towards the tenement.

"And because—I'm having trouble in medical class and maybe you could help me understand some…things," Vivian called out hastily.

"Very well, then," Herbert said, still beating a fast retreat towards the tenement. As soon as he was inside, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Now for the next experiment at hand…


	5. Another Mad Experiment Gone Awry

Episode Five: Just Another Mad Experiment Gone Terribly Awry 

"So what kind of subject do we have this time, Herbert?" I asked as he laid the sheeted corpse on the floor and began fiddling in his bag for a syringe.

"I'm afraid I had to pick up the first corpse I could lay my hands on in the morgue," Herbert said shortly. "Get my serum."

"Where is it?" I asked.

"It should be on the dresser," Herbert replied, pulling the sheet off our newest subject. I saw an old lady in a print dress and a bonnet lying stiff and rigid on the floor.

"Are you sure she's dead?" I gulped.

"She looks pretty live still," Herbert agreed. "But she's the freshest one they had at the morgue. Only died a half-hour ago from a heart attack. Hand me my serum and let's get to work—we're losing time."

"Here you go," I handed him a glowing green vial.

He quickly took it from me and with fingers pursed and eyes intent on the silver line of the needle, he filled the syringe with the reagent. Then, with careful practiced precision, he knelt down next to the old lady and injected the stuff into her throat.

We both stood back and held our breath. Nothing happened.

"Damn," Herbert cursed, as he often did when there was any delay in the reagent's effect.

"Maybe you didn't give her enough," I suggested.

Herbert nodded. "Yes, maybe you're right," he reached for the syringe again.

Suddenly, the old lady jerked upright, seized a broom lying nearby, and brandished the end of it at us. Herbert and I were both so astonished, that we stumbled backwards.

"What did yew young fellers dew with my spectacles?" she demanded, waving the brookstick in our faces. "Yer gonna get a whackin' if yew don't tell me now!"

"Observe, James!" Herbert exclaimed. "This is the first time one of our subjects has spoken intelligible sentences! Besides Hill, of course, but he doesn't count."

"Shush, yew young feller," the old lady declared, wacking my beaming friend with her broomstick. "Where'd yew put my spectacles? Everyone's always misplacin' 'em! Where are they? Where's ma sewin' needle, for that matter!"

"L-lady!" I stammered. "We have no idea where any of your personal accoutrements have gone to. However, I'm sure the morticians would have an idea—"

"Morticians?" the old lady screeched. "What's gotten into yer head, sonny? Yew better gimme ma glasses or yer gonna get a tanning on yer hide!"

And with that, the old lady made a swipe at us with the broom. Herbert and I immediately made a dive for the door, but we could hear the broom crashing behind us.

"We've got to get out of here!" I exclaimed.

"James, this is incredible!" Herbert panted as we raced down the hallway away from our room, the old lady screeching behind us. "For the first time, one of our subjects has actually displayed intelligent life! She must have been exceedingly fresh."

"Yeah, well, she's still attacking us like all the rest," I muttered. Once we reached the banister of the staircase leading to the second floor of the tenement, we stopped.

"All right, now what do we do?" I asked. As I spoke, the old lady dashed out of our room—her speed was really something to see. And she looked furious—I was pretty sure that whatever intelligent life she might have possessed before was disappearing pretty quickly. She rushed towards us muttering unintelligibly, "Where'r my spectacles…where they be…"

Before Herbert and I could turn and run, she dashed towards us.

"James—she looked positively murderous!" Herbert said in despair. "The reagent was working so well up until now!"  
"That's all you're worried about?" I gulped. She was only a few feet away from us, and she was brandishing something that looked suspiciously like a meat cleaver.

Before my friend could reply, the meat cleaver flew through the air heading straight for us. It was a miracle that we ducked in time. The cleaver imbedded itself in the wood of the wall behind us, and at that moment our landlord popped his head out of a room downstairs.

"Quit that racket!" he barked. "We've got people sleeping around here!"  
The old lady screeched and dashed past us down the staircase towards him. The landlord's eyes popped and he scrambled back in his room and shut the door.

At the same time, the old lady's movements seemed to have become more sluggish. She mumbled something and then fell over, presumably dead—again.

Herbert sighed and wiped the sweat off his brow. Then he quickly checked his watch. "Five minutes," he remarked. "That didn't last long, given the dose I gave her. Write that down, Harkness!" he said to me. "Five minutes." He glanced downstairs. "Well, that didn't go so well."


End file.
